Foxface's Real Name
by Taneva Rose
Summary: The girl from Twelve is right when she thinks that Foxface is the smartest of them all, but Knowledge is her downfall. Her downfall and salvation. Fox/Thresh


Another one for AimMyArrowsHigh.

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><p>Foxface's real name is Eve.<p>

No one knew her name in the Capitol, because Eve's strategy was hiding and she was _good_ at it.

Good enough to win, she promised her mother, Eden, as they pulled her away.

Her mother always wished that Eve would attract more notice in the Plants. Bedding a foreman was the easiest way to avoid being assigned to a cleaning crew that had to tip-toe on the blades of moving wind-turbines.

But Eve didn't want notice.

She wanted knowledge.

(Anyway she was good at dancing on wind-mills.)

That was easiest found in the musky, shadowy places. The hidden libraries, located in the basements of old bombed-out churches beyond the electric fences.

When she's reaped she's terrified because she's going to die, but she's also excited, because now she's going to travel to the forbidden city and see forbidden things.

Even after sixteen tributes die from the forest fire. Eve's still cocky. She knows how to make the arena into Eden, which fruits to eat, who to steal from, how to steal, how to observe, to gain knowledge.

The girl from Twelve is right when she thinks that Foxface is the smartest of them all.

Knowledge is her downfall.

Knowledge of the boy from Eleven.

Thresh.

Everyone thought he would be the killer, but he hides out in the reeds just like her.

She knows because she dogs his footsteps like a shadow and listens to him hum old spirituals slaves used to hum. (She knows about Slaves because of the bombed-out church libraries.)

Her curiosity turns to admiration, when his little girl partner gets killed. He cries silent tears and doesn't care if the camera sees. That's real bravery. Not being afraid to show pain.

He's naked and innocent in the forest. The Capitol doesn't know what to do with the boy who should kill but _isn't. _A boy who looks strong even as he lays the girl with skin of night down in the reeds and whispers her away into eternity.

He doesn't just cry for the girl tribute, he gives his grief generously to the two tributes from Twelve who tried to save her. He wipes his tears across their face like invisible war paint. He pours marsh-water over them, singing low throaty songs. Ancient as love. His big hands cradling the two bodies. The boy and the girl that were supposed to be on fire.

Eve is in love with him then.

For the first time she wants to be noticed.

Even if it gets her killed.

She's about to step out into the light.

Then the Herculean Career boy, Cato, hurtles an axe at Eleven.

He dodges and breaks the boys neck.

The blood comes out apple-red.

Foxface weeps bitterly as the canon sounds. Yes, Cato is evil, but Thresh has taught her that death is death. And Thresh can't weep because he did it, so she guesses she just has to weep for him.

The Capitol watches the weeping girl and they weep too, because they know things now.

Things they don't know they know yet.

Unknown knowns.

Eve has those too. She still loves Thresh, even though she doesn't know why anymore. The boy is good, but not innocent.

That night as she steals away to his camp, taking no more fruit that he'd gathered, she isn't either.

She is naked under the starlight, her skin white and freckled, before him.

Thresh knows he should kill her, but he just can't. She looks like Woman. Looking at her makes him feel like Man.

(Killing Cato made him feel like Monster.)

And the Capital has taken away their myths and stories and bibles, but they can't take away the truth-the people of Panem live stories, _are_ stories.

Eve and Thresh have one night in the garden. Of marvel and wonder and exploration. Lost in the wilderness.

Thresh is not a virgin, but Eve's skin is white as snow and all he knows is southern sun. She is his northern light, flickering aurora borealis, power-plant girl.

Most of the masacared monsters and green-skinned citizens never had a first time; they had been marinated in sex since before they emerged from the womb.

But Eve is a virgin, and for the first time Panem looks away from blood.

All the girls wonder what it would be like to have a monster-man hold them with such gentleness.

The last canon sounds as he holds her in his arms, sleeping.

It's just the two of them in the Garden now.

Ratings spike as they expect him to snap her neck.

They spike further when he doesn't.

In District 5, people begin to call the boy from 11 Adam.

Snow comforts himself with poetry, "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven." But even he has a hard time believing it when he hears rumors of thirteen. Not even God had it so hard, he only had one real dissenter. Snow has thousands—but then again he doesn't allow free will either.

He decides the boy has to die before things get out of hand.

He sends a snake.

A giant python winds it's way through the marsh-grass towards the black boy.

But Foxface knows things now.

She knows that she loves Thresh.

She knows that to be noticed.

To be seen by him.

Naked, vulnerable.

It's beautiful.

She knows that she cannot bear to kill Thresh, let alone watch herself kill him on the victory re-caps.

So she wanders off in the gray dawn to pick an apple.

An apple she knows she must not bite.

Her father told her never to eat an apple redder than blood, and when she asked why he said.

It's bad. Very bad.

Still, the snake comes. The boys big chest rising and falling with the slow, evenness of sleep.

Just as it's about to bite the thick heel of the boy, just above his Achilles tendon.

Eve swallows.

The poison from the Apple is quick. It glasses over her eyes, and soon the canon is sounding.

The snake slinks away.

Thresh doesn't know where she is or why she's dead.

But the Capitol knows.

They bit the apple right along with the girl.

During the recaps they learn her name:

Eve.

And the devil is afraid.


End file.
